Archive for November 27th, 2008

Criminals Tamper With Street Telephone Boxes To Extract Financial Information

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Thieves are getting more ingenuous every day and where less expected, criminals hands are at work. This time a gang made up of 9 individuals were the focus of attention of investigators after receiving a number of complaints of fraud.

It appears that the gang broke into the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) telephone boxes located on public streets, tapping into conversations of their selected victims to obtain detailed financial information.

Using information obtained by Datum and other information services that provide names, telephone numbers, property ownership and other financial information, the gang chose their victims.

ICE spokesperson Elberth Durán explained that the institution is making a full check of all theri telephone boxes, some which have been found to have been tampered with. Durán emphasized that the tampering are isolated incidents, however, there will be a full internal investigation and is asking residents to report to authorities any suspicious behaviour around the telephone boxes.

50.000 GSM Lines Available December 15

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Good news for the tens of thousands who have been waiting patiently for a cellular telephone line, 50.000 GSM lines will be available on December 15, said Orlando Cascante, director de Servicios Móviles del ICE.

Cascante was quick to point out that the lines are not new, but rather, lines from users who did not pay their bills on time or decided to cancel the service.

ICE has a policy of “liquidacion” after two consecutive bills are unpaid. In such a case customers lose their lines, however, can in many cases get back the same number if the non payment has not continued for more than 3 months, or will be assigned a new number.

ICE’s plan to is make available between 2.000 and 2.500 lines a day based on reservation.

According to ICE, there are some 150.000 people waiting to get cellular service.

ICE is working on expanding the Ericsson network by 300.000 additional lines, which should have been available the first week of December and reviewing the bids for the 950.000 3G lines which the institution says will be available sometime by the end of 2009.